REPORT OF THE INSPECTOR TO THE STATE BOARD 

 OF AGRICULTURE FOR THE YEAR 1906. 



2 the Massachusetts State Board of Agriculture, 

 Gentlemen : — 



The work of the Massachusetts Horticultural Society during 

 the present year has not varied much from that of previous years. 

 It has endeavored through its public exhibitions and by its annual 

 course of lectures and discussions to increase the interest in horti- 

 cultural and agricultural matters. It has held fifteen exhibitions 

 of plants, flowers, fruits, and vegetables, and the public interest 

 in them has been fully up to the average of past years. It has held 

 also nine meetings for lectures and discussions, which have covered 

 a wide range of horticultural topics, and have been largely attended 

 by a class of people directly interested in the subjects treated. The 

 discussions, especially, which have been led by experts in the several 

 lines treated, have proved very helpful and have afforded oppor- 

 tunity for the acquiring of information that has been highly appre- 

 ciated by many. 



The exhibition of September 5 and 6, which is one of the great 

 flower shows of the year, was especially interesting as showing the 

 tremendous development in recent years of the public interest in 

 the dahlia, and the important place this flower has attained not only 

 in the regard of the amateur cultivator, but as an important business 

 enterprise for the commercial grower; for there are now in the 

 Commonwealth many plantations, some of them acres in extent, 

 devoted wholly to the cultivation for market purposes of this favorite 

 flower. 



The exhibition of October 10 and 11 was devoted wholly to fruits 

 and vegetables and proved very successful, so much so that it will 

 be made a permanent feature in the society's schedule in the future. 



Much more might be said in detail of the work of the Massachu- 

 setts Horticultural Society, if the limits of this report permitted. 

 With its grand record of seventy-seven years devoted to the educa- 



